Right, it's individual donors.
Evidence of meeting #26 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was girls.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #26 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was girls.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Board of Directors Member, Canadian Women's Foundation
Right, it's individual donors.
Conservative
Board of Directors Member, Canadian Women's Foundation
Yes. One of our campaigns was “Women Moving Women”, and we found 2,500 women across the country to commit $2,500 over five years to help move another woman and her family out of poverty.
So there are different campaigns.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you, Ms. Crooks.
To CRIAW, this is just a quick question. I'm hearing from our one witness today that they were able to raise $65 million from individuals and the private sector. I'm just wondering whether your organization has also tried to do the same thing to help fund the areas that you say are lacking.
Director, FemNorthNet Project, Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women
Yes, definitely, and we've not had nearly the success. Maybe it's a different focus—
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Do you know why you're not having success? Is it the issue you're covering, or is it...?
Director, FemNorthNet Project, Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women
I think partly because we focus a lot on issues relating to poverty in women and marginalized women, our constituency doesn't have the money to donate that amount.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you.
Ms. Crooks, you mentioned something in your speech about “protective factors” for the age group of nine to thirteen, who then become productive adults. I'm not quite sure what you meant by “protective factors”. What were you exactly talking about?
Board of Directors Member, Canadian Women's Foundation
Sure.
Actually, I'd like to clarify one previous comment. If I put on my researcher hat, I certainly have not had access to $65 million in research funding. I think it's a bit unfair to compare the Canadian Women's Foundation with a research outfit, because—
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
No, Ms. Crooks—I'm sorry to cut you off—I wasn't comparing. I'm just wondering why your organization was successful and what the barriers were for the other organizations.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
To get back to my question, when you talk about “protective factors”, what does that mean?
Board of Directors Member, Canadian Women's Foundation
Protective factors are the opposite of risk factors. What it means for a developmental researcher is that if you look at two groups of youth who have different outcomes of interest—adolescent girls who were successful in school versus those who weren't—you can identify risk factors. Protective factors are essentially the opposite, things that even in the face of poverty, even in the face of maybe experiencing violence, serve an important role.
In my own research with adolescents—
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
I'm sorry, I'd like to ask you another question.
We heard from another witness in a previous session that girls, when they become a certain age, would actually rather be called stupid, I believe they said, than ugly. I'm not sure if I have that exactly....
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
I actually found that quite alarming.
In your speech you mentioned that girls are actually performing better in public school, but once they hit that age of nine to thirteen or fourteen years old, they tend to start to drop behind boys. It kind of ties into that other statement—I'm just trying to get your opinion on this—that girls mature physically faster than boys do. Do you think this has anything to do with the fact that at that particular age, girls take a step back and are not necessarily trying to overachieve with the boys as the opposite sex, in particular with education and so forth...?
It's been a long time since I was that age, but I know that at a particular age girls become more interested in the opposite sex, in boys and dating and so forth. I'm wondering if you think that has anything to tie in with the fact that girls start to fall behind a bit at that age.
That's just a “yes or no” curious question.
Board of Directors Member, Canadian Women's Foundation
You know, I think you're missing a piece, which is about the hypersexualization of girls. Girls that age aren't talking about not doing their math homework because they want to look pretty for a boy; they're talking about this massive pressure that is driven by multi-billion-dollar marketing that you have to look and be a certain way. It's a very sexy way compared to what it used to be.
That's why I was saying it's not just about having to be pretty; it's about these very confusing messages for girls who are nine, ten, and eleven years old. Why are we selling lingerie to them? Why are nine-year-old girls able to buy push-up bras? What's that image? Rather than that they get interested in the opposite sex, they're fighting off this bombardment of media messages, and that doesn't leave a whole lot of time and room for other pursuits and development.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you.
Recently Status of Women Canada did a call for proposals, and it had to do with rural and remote communities for girls and young women. I'm just wondering whether you think there is a definite difference between the barriers that face girls from remote or rural areas versus girls who might be in urban centres.
Again, this study is based on economic prospects of young girls.
Board of Directors Member, Canadian Women's Foundation
Absolutely. In my research role I'm involved with a program called the Fourth R, which has developed school-based prevention programming that's in 2,000 schools around the country. As well, I have a Public Health Agency of Canada innovation strategy grant to work with communities in the Northwest Territories in particular, so I have been able to spend time in Yellowknife and Behchoko, and I've seen first-hand how different the barriers are. Certainly poverty is a huge barrier. Certainly in some of these communities, the rates of sexual abuse experienced by girls are much higher than what would be the national norm. There are also some of the things that the other witnesses spoke about today. For example, when you have to make a decision to leave your community at a certain age to get further schooling, there are obviously big barriers associated with that as well. Obviously there is also the question of economic prospects in general.
Conservative
